Background: In opaque orthographies, such as English, children with low reading skills tend to rely more on semantic information due to their inadequate acquisition of sub-lexical knowledge. This tendency has also been reported for kanji, a non-alphabetic and opaque Japanese orthography. However, previous studies on this phenomenon have had…

Background: Children's spellings are often scored as correct or incorrect, but other measures may be better predictors of later spelling performance. Method: We examined seven measures of spelling in Reception Year and Year 1 (5-6 years old) as predictors of performance on a standardised spelling test in Year 2 (age 7). Results: Correctness was…

Background: Of the myriad of reading comprehension (RC) assessments used in schools, multiple-choice (MC) questions continue to be one of the most prevalent formats used by educators and researchers. Outcomes from RC assessments dictate many critical factors encountered during a student's academic career, and it is crucial that we gain a deeper…

Background: Disruptions of reading processes due to text substitutions can measure how readers use lexical information. Methods: With eye-movement recording, children and adults viewed sentences with either identical, orthographically similar, homophonic or unrelated substitutions of the first characters in target words. To the extent that readers…

Background: The goal of this study was to examine the effect of cognates on Spanish-English bilingual children's English reading fluency. Because cognates lead to higher levels of non-target language activation, we hypothesised that the presence of cognates would result in reduced reading fluency for bilingual children. Methods: Monolingual…

Background: Successful reading can be achieved by means of two different procedures: sub-word processes for the pronunciation of words without semantics or pseudowords (PW) and whole-word processes that recruit word-specific information regarding the pronunciation of words with atypical orthography-to-phonology mappings (exception words, EW).…

An investigation into the impact of predictive text use upon the literacy skills of primary school, secondary school and university cohorts was conducted over the course of a year. No differences in use of text abbreviations ("textisms") were found between predictive text users and nonusers. However, secondary school children who used…

Children with specific language impairments (SLI) have difficulties in producing written text. It was hypothesised that the constraints on writing in children with SLI were similar to typically developing younger children with the same level of vocabulary knowledge. Twenty-three children with SLI (aged 10:5) were matched with 23 children for…

In order to communicate understanding, students are often required to produce texts which present an explicit, coherent argument. This study examined the extent to which individual differences in undergraduates' topic knowledge and working memory skills were related to their ability to revise texts to better fulfil these goals. Forty-seven…

Examines misspellings made by English speakers writing in English and German, concluding that English spelling is almost seven times more difficult than German. Classifies errors and discusses reasons for them. Relates the misspellings to the redundant letters removed in "Cut Spelng" to show how far such a technique for simplifying…

Thomson was the first of very few researchers to have studied oral reading errors as a means of addressing the question: Are dyslexic readers different to other readers? Using the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability and Goodman's taxonomy of oral reading errors, Thomson concluded that dyslexic readers are different, but he found that they do not…

Reveals striking differences between the characteristics of oral reading errors made to content and function words: Content word errors tended to be graphically similar but contextually unacceptable, whereas the reverse was true for function word errors. Argues that some errors are better viewed not as errors in word recognition but as…

Concludes that there is no adequate support for recommending that teachers attempt to increase the incidence of a child's self-corrections when reading. (FL)

Parallel versions of a new multiple-choice word-recognition test were administered to 1019 and 590 Year-1 pupils respectively. The test format was based on a published test of Word Recognition and Phonic Skills and was intended to provide reliable diagnostic information. It was found that internally consistent measures of three types of word…

Describes a study of oral reading errors by six-year-olds indicating that previously read words are frequently substituted at points of miscue, but that reliance on this source decreased over the year, casting doubt on previously postulated developmental phases of reading. (HTH)